“Your acting will not be good until it is only yours. That’s true of music, acting, anything creative. You work until finally nobody is acting like you.”
- Sanford Meisner
If you are just starting your actor training, the Meisner approach is a perfect way to begin your studies.
If you have studied other approaches but still feel like something is lacking in your training, perhaps Meisner is the answer you are looking for.
If you are a professional actor who needs special help preparing for a role or who wants to refresh and expand your technique, a Designated Meisner Teacher may be the right solution.
The Meisner technique is an approach to acting which was developed by the American theatre practitioner Sanford Meisner. The focus of the technique is for actors to "get out of their heads" and behave instinctively. Exercises are rooted in Repetition, in which actors learn to take the attention off themselves and put it on their partners’ real behavior, allowing it to affect them and cause a truthful reaction. The Meisner technique developed the behavioral strand of Stanislavski's system.
“Act before you think - your instincts are more honest than your thoughts.”
Meisner believed that when actors learn to rely on their authentic instincts, this allows them to manifest truthful human behavior. He developed a series of exercises rooted in Repetition in which the actors’ observation skills are cultivated, encouraging them to "get out of their heads" and behave instinctively. The actor stops thinking of what to say and do, and learns to respond more freely and spontaneously.
“Be a feather in the wind.”
To the actor, the most important person in the room is their scene partner. Actors learn to take the attention off themselves and put it on the other person, allowing their partners’ real behavior to affect them and cause a truthful reaction. Meisner believed that the most truthful and spontaneous acting happened when the actor was responding to the other person from one unanticipated moment to the next. The actor becomes the feather and his scene partner becomes the wind.
“Acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances.”
Meisner agreed with Stanislavski that the best acting must be based in truth. His students learned how to "really do" whatever they were doing on stage. Emotions were never pushed out or faked. Meisner taught his students to trust their humanity. If the actors believed in the imaginary circumstances and really did what they were doing in the imaginary circumstances, then the proper emotions would follow. Every exercise that Meisner developed reinforces and strengthens an actor's truthfulness.